of the Fishery Board for Scotland 



285 



apparently about 1000 feet high. Wonderful sport has occasionally been 

 got in this loch. Macaulay, the Ground Officer, told me that in August 

 1842, without a boat and fishing from the side, he captured in one day 

 19 salmon and a number of sea-trout, the whole take weighing 180 lbs. 

 This is the greatest angling feat on record in Loch Scoorst. But, 5, 6, 7, 

 and 10 salmon have been caught in it by one rod in a single day. 

 Macaulay has known the Harris fishings since 1828, and he says that 50 

 years ago, there were 20 salmon for 1 there is to-day. He thinks Loch 

 Voshimid from which the Resort River — the largest in Harris — flows, 

 even a better loch than Loch Scoorst. The average annual take of sal- 

 mon and sea-trout by the rod in the North Harris rivers and lochs for the 

 last 13 years, has been 50 salmon and 700 sea-trout, most of the latter 

 large. In 1883, 70 salmon and 750 sea-trout were captured. This 

 includes only the salmon and sea-trout taken within the limits of the 

 North Harris Deer Forest, and does not include those captured in 

 the lochs attached to the Tarbert Hotel, or in the streams and lochs of 

 South Harris. The annual average of the Hotel fishings, Mr Hornsby 

 informs me, is 32 salmon and 632 sea-trout, of smaller size than those 

 caught in the forest lochs; and he thinks that probably half as many 

 more are taken by yachtsmen with nets and by other kinds of poaching. 

 I have no return of the numbers caught in South Harris. In various 

 parts of Harris, salmon and sea-trout take the fly in the sea, and Mac- 

 aulay told me that he has known 15 salmon taken in the bay at Avonsui 

 by a gentleman staying there. The fly used was dressed by Macaulay, 

 and had a green body with flat silver tinsel and herons wings. Many 

 years ago, when fishing in Harris, I killed 8 sea-trout with fly in the sea 

 near the mouth of the stream that runs out of the lowest of the Lacastile 

 Lochs ; and the same season I got several heavy sea-trout with the Protean 

 minnow in the bay into which the Laxdale River runs. On this latter 

 occasion, salmon were jumping all round the boat. But, though the sea- 

 trout were taking the bait freely, no salmon ever offered to take it, and 

 I have been often puzzled to find out a reason for this. Why is it too 

 that sea-trout, and occasionally salmon, will take fly, or worm, or minnow, 

 in various places in the Outer Hebrides, and in the bays and voes of the 

 Orkney and Shetland Islands, and almost invariably refuse them in the 

 bays and creeks around the shores of the Mainland of Scotland? 



Loch Voshimid. 



Next day I drove to the bridge over the Meavaig River, and from 

 thence walked to Loch Voshimid, a distance of about 5 miles, passing 

 Loch Scoorst and the Meavaig River by the way. The upper part 

 of the Meavaig which flows into Loch Scoorst contains splendid 

 spawning ground. Loch Voshimid is larger than Loch Scoorst, and the 

 river that flows from it — the Resort — has considerably more water than 

 the Meavaig, and has some good pools not far below the loch. The gillie 

 who was with me remembers the fishings in Harris for 25 years. He 

 thinks there are not now as many salmon and sea-trout as there used to 

 be. There is a good deal of poaching ; and when asked whether there 

 was not as much poaching 25 years ago as there is now, he replied tliat 

 the poachers then were not so well up to the ways of taking salmon as 

 they are now. They know exactly where the salmon lie in close-time, 

 and they use nets and drive the fish into them. A bothy should be con- 

 structed between Loch Scoorst and Loch Voshimid, and a keeper should 

 sleep there in winter, during the close-time to watch the rivers. On the 

 other hand, it should be mentioned that Macaulay, the Ground Officer, 

 says that there is no poaching in the forest. 



